The kid didn't want to die; he didn't even try to hide it with a brave face. He was a lanky 16 year-old from District 6 with pimples and crooked teeth. Nothing special, not good looking, not particularly clever, just an unattractive teenager from a rundown district that was polluted and had a sky that was perpetually grey due to the smoke from the car and high speed train factories. It had never been a nice place to live, even before the dark days, before Panem that place was a hellhole. It used to be called Detroit, the Motor City. Transportation had always been the main industry of this cold, grey city of filth. It had a heyday once and churned out shiny automobiles at an impressive rate but then the economy turned, the factories closed, and the people moved away. The ones who stayed were poor and had no way to get out and no way to provide the money to keep their city clean and beautiful. Their once sparkling main train station that had once resembled a castle inside fell into complete disrepair with broken windows and crumbling brick. The factories sat empty and the houses rapidly became dilapidated. Crime was rampant and poverty made the city's residents jaded and hollow-eyed, hopeless. Drugs became a way to make money and an escape for those who were doomed to spend their lives in that disintegrating rat hole. It's no different now, only the factories won't close because the Capitol needs what they produce. The drugs are still there and are the dish du jour for the district's Victors.

His name was Hamer and he came onto the stage with a terrified look in his eyes and his head down. I could tell by the way he refused to look at the audience that he was used to be ridiculed. He sat in the chair beside mine not meeting my eyes with his hands in his lap and his longish hair in his eyes. I went through the usual round of questions, "What did you think when you were reaped? Who's waiting for you back home? Do you have a family that came to say goodbye to you?" and so on. He said that he did have a family, he lived with his grandmother and his sister and that he was the bread winner for the family. He smiled then and said that maybe all the heavy lifting he did at work would make him strong enough to win. When I asked if he had a girlfriend he grinned and told me that he did in fact have one and that her name was Tessa and that she was the first real girlfriend he had ever had. "Did she come to say goodbye to you?" I asked.

"She did," he answered.

"So," I said grinning at the audience, "what did she say to you before you left?"

"She told me to come home because she loved me and she would be waiting. I told her I loved her too and that I would think of her pretty face when things got bad in the arena so that I would have the strength to survive and come home to her," he said, with a sad smile on his face while nervously running his hands through his hair. "I won't disappoint her."

The audience loved it and began to cheer loudly. When the buzzer rang and Hamer walked off of the stage I saw the two tributes from District 2 glaring at him from the hallway where they waited for their mentors to come and escort them back upstairs. They knew that this boy had just won some hearts and possibly a few wealthy sponsors and that if sponsors were sending to gifts to Hamer that they would not be sending gifts to them. Sponsor money can be the difference between life and death in the arena and the tributes from District 2 were brought up knowing how the game was played. Honestly the girl from 2, Enobaria, creeped me out a little, she was loud and mean with a feral look in her eyes. I wouldn't want to have to fight her because on top of being vicious she also scored a nine in training. But I liked Hamer; maybe I could talk some of my friends into sending some money his way during the games. No one else had really mad an impression on me; only Hamer with his sad smile and his first girlfriend. There was just something about him that tugged at your heart strings.

During the games I watched Hamer with bated breath while giving running commentary on TV with Claudius Templesmith. At night when I went home I flipped the games on again so that I could see how Hamer was faring. He did pretty well for a kid from 6 who had no formal training of any kind. He survived the bloodbath and got a pretty decent backpack with a sleeping bag, food, water, flashlight, and a plastic tarp. After scooping up the pack he darted in a little farther and grabbed a large knife that was lying in the grass dropped by a dead tribute. He formed an alliance with a boy from 7 and the two of them managed to more or less avoid the Careers. Hamer's ally died on the fifth night of the games after being by a large, poisonous, spider mutt. Hamer spent the next two days hiding inside of a hollow tree that he and the boy from 7 had found together.

When Hamer made it to the final eight his family and girlfriend were interviewed on television. His girlfriend was a solidly built girl with dark hair and a quiet voice. When asked what she thought about Hamer making it to the final eight she said "He promised me he would do his best to come home and I know he will. Hamer is honest and sweet; if he told me he was going to try hard I know he will. I know he'll do his best to come home to his family and to me."

Hamer made it to the top two and the games ended with a bloody fight between him and Enobaria. Hamer had the axe that his ally from 7 had been carrying as well as the knife that he had picked up at the cornucopia. After struggling for a few minutes he managed to disarm Enobaria but she tripped him. When he hit the ground she jumped on him and without saying a word she bent down and ripped his throat out with her teeth. I immediately ran to the bathroom and vomited; in all of my years as a commentator for The Hunger Games I had never seen anything so horrible.

During Enobaria's post game interview she revealed her cosmetically altered smile to the crowd who thought that it was wonderful. They had already forgotten the boy that she killed with those teeth. But I didn't forget and I wished that it was Hamer sitting here with me instead of this pointy-toothed freak. A good heart never gets you anywhere, at least not in the arena.